Archives: Morning Breakouts

Speaking this week at "the 99th Indian Science Congress, the country's largest annual gathering of scientists," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "said the occasion demanded looking anew at the role of science in a country 'grappling with the challenges of poverty and development'" and "emphasized that 'the overriding objective of a comprehensive and well-considered policy for science, technology and innovation should be to support the national objective of faster, sustainable and inclusive development,'" SciDev.Net reports. "Singh also underscored the need to use innovations creatively for social benefit," the news service writes.

In a new report from the American Cancer Society, researchers indicate that cancer death rates in the United States fell 1.8 percent in men and 1.6 percent in women each year between 2004 and 2008, but those gains weren't as pronounced in young adults.

In Nepal, "a child malnutrition epidemic described by humanitarian organizations as a 'silent emergency' is claiming the lives of thousands of infants each year," Agence France-Presse reports. "According to government statistics 1.7 million children -- nearly half of all under-fives -- suffer from chronic malnutrition, a long-term condition also known as stunting," the news service writes, adding, "Acute malnutrition, a condition known as 'wasting' blamed for half of Nepal's infant deaths, is thought to affect 18 percent."

This week's selections come from The New York Times Magazine, National Review, Salon and American Medical News.

IRIN examines how a lack of sanitation facilities and access to clean water, as well as the onset of the rainy season, are increasing the risk of waterborne diseases in rural areas of Zimbabwe. A 2009 survey, "compiled by the government and U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), listed diarrhea as one of the major causes of infant mortality resulting in around 4,000 deaths in Zimbabwe annually" and "showed a 20 percent increase in under-five mortality since 1990," IRIN writes.

"The quest for a vaccine against AIDS is gaining momentum, with research published Wednesday identifying promising new candidates that protected monkeys against a powerful strain of the virus and that soon could be tested in humans," the Wall Street Journal reports (McKay, 1/5). Researchers treated different groups of rhesus monkeys with several different two-stage vaccine combinations and then exposed them to a simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) that was different than the one used to make the vaccines, according to Nature (Callaway, 1/4).

In this Huffington Post "Impact" blog post, Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, writes that she will be visiting Bangladesh to "lear[n] even more about two of the biggest killers of children -- pneumonia and diarrhea," and says "Bangladesh has made incredible progress in recent years, reducing the number of childhood deaths by 65 percent since 1990." She writes, "As I reflect back on what I learned this year about the progress and the challenges in women's and children's health, I'm struck by the fact that we don't need to wait for the solutions," including "[t]hings like life-saving vaccines, contraceptives, healthy practices for mothers and newborns and good nutrition."

SmartGlobalHealth.org features the latest episode of "Small Screen Sessions," in which J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Center for Strategic & International Studies' Global Health Policy Center, discusses the policy changes that enabled the International AIDS Conference to return to the U.S. in 2012 after a 22-year hiatus, and the beginning of the "end of AIDS" (1/4).

PSI's "Healthy Lives" blog features a video from the University of North Carolina (UNC) Medical Center News Office in which Myron Cohen, a professor of medicine, microbiology, immunology and public health at UNC-Chapel Hill and the director of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, discusses his research into HIV/AIDS prevention, including his lead role in HPTN 052. That study, which found "that the sexual transmission [of HIV] can be virtually stopped when the infected person is treated with ARVs, this year was heralded as the 'Breakthrough of the Year' by Science magazine," according to the blog (1/4).

As she announced she was leaving the presidential race, Rep. Bachmann referred to "Obamacare" 11 times.

A British Medical Journal study found that drug research, including federal government-sponsored clinical trials, is often suppressed, which lead to higher drug costs and harm for patients.